Earnings Preview For Express Scripts (ESRX, MZEI)

Express Scripts (NASDAQ:

) will publish its Q1 earnings per share (

) results on Monday after the market close. Analysts are expecting earnings of $0.69 per share (four cents lower than estimated 90 days ago) and total revenues of $11.56bn. The EPS for previous year's Q1 was $0.55. Express Scripts is a Missouri-based pharmacy benefit management operating in North America. The company processes pharmaceutical claims for members at network pharmacies and at their own mail order pharmacies. It is one of Fortune 100 companies whose clients include health maintenance organizations (HMOs), health insurers, third-party administrators, employers, union-sponsored benefit plans, workers' compensation plans and Government health programs. In October 2010, the Company completed the spinoff of its Rx Outreach business unit. In November 2010, the Company announced the formation of Express Scripts Specialty Benefit Services, a specialty benefits company. Express Scripts currently employs over 14,000 people. Over the past five years, Express Scripts' growth has been healthy with sales compounding at a 20% annual rate and net income and EPS growing even faster at a 26% and 28% rate, respectfully. Investors will be hoping that the company can maintain such a momentum. A healthy sales growth seems to overshadow any doubts about Express Scripts' ability to repay its short-term liabilities with short-term assets, after a recent report named Express Scripts as having the second lowest Current Ratio in the industry, after Medizone International (NASDAQ: MZEI). Analysts' predictions have so far been very accurate. In the past year, analysts have missed the actual EPS just by one cent. After already lowering their EPS expectations for this quarter in the previous three months, analysts will be hoping that the actual EPS is at least not much below the current estimate. The lower EPS expectations for the current quarter, however, brought down Express Scripts' shares by 3.5% over the 90-days period.